Upcycled Origami Dress Made From 1,000 Paper Cranes

From Ecouterre, here's one way to upcycle your newspapers from the ordinary to instant couture: this upcycled dress made from one thousand newspaper cranes by Yuliya Kyrpo. This stunning outfit is part of the Trash Fashion show now on at London's Science Museum, which have featured interesting experiments so far like clothing grown from green tea and bacteria. We're wondering too, if Yuliya's gorgeous paper crane dress (more photos after the jump) is a stylish but fitting fashion tribute to a well-known young victim of the atom bomb back in World War II.Sadako Sasaki, an eleven-year-old Japanese girl who developed leukemia years after the dropping of the atomic bomb near her home, was made famous by her quest to fold one thousand paper cranes so that she could be granted the wish to get well. Though she had plenty of free time to fold her cranes, there was a shortage of paper so Sadako used any bits of paper that she could find at the hospital and from her friends (a world of difference from the uniformity of the Metro newspapers used in this dress).

Unfortunately, Sadako was only able to fold 644 cranes before she died, leaving her friends to finish the rest. Today at Hiroshima there's a memorial to Sadako, not to mention the 9 tons of paper cranes from all over the world that are now delivered and displayed at Hiroshima every year.

So, perhaps you're inspired by all this to fold a paper crane (maybe for fashion or for world peace)? Some instructions here.